Should I Be Sore After Weight Training?

Have you ever heard the phrase:

"If you didn't get sore from your last workout, you didn't make progress?"

You can chalk this up to yet another fitness myth. There are several indicators of progress but soreness is not one of them.

In the next few minutes you will why you might feel soreness after exercise.

Immediately after a workout if you feel muscular soreness, this is referred to as Acute Muscle Sorness. Acute muscle soreness can last approximately up to an hour after exercise. Normally caused by a restriction in blood flow to the muscle or the build up of metabolic byproducts like lactic acid or hydrogen ions.

However, the type that you feel 12 to 48 hours later is more commonly referred to as DOMS or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. You might also hear the term PEMS which stands for Post Exercise Muscle Soreness. Two terms, same meaning.

While it's not entirely understood exactly what causes DOMS or PEMS there are 3 leading theories on the subject. The leading hypotehsis are:

1. Connective Tissue Damage Hypothesis
2. Skeletal Muscle Damage Hypothesis
3. Spasm Hypothesis

Connective Tissue Damage:

DOMS or PEMS is caused by a disruption in the connective tissue of the various muscle and tendinous attachments as reported by a study in 1997. This study was conduced by Brown, Child, Day and Donnelly confirming an earlier observation by Abraham.

Skeletal Muscle Damage Hypothesis.

Clarkson et al in a 1986 study found greater perceived muscle soreness related to the eccentric (stretching) portion of the movement. Further research in 2000 from peer reviewed articled entitled, "Effects of Plyometric Exercise on Muscle Soreness and Plasma Creatine Kinase Levels and its Comparison with Eccentric and Concentric Exercise" (The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 68-74), confirmed Clarkson's study. They further found evidence to support that plyometric exercises lead to perceived muscle soreness more than concentric movements.

Spasm Hypothesis.

In a 1980 study, Devries proposed that DOMS or PEMS is due to a restriction in blood supply, generally due to factors in the blood vessels, with resultant damage or dysfunction of tissue called ischemia. As you continued to workout, further ischemia would result in more damage and "soreness." This theory was further proven by work done in 2000 by Barlas, Walsh, Baxter, and Allen.

The micro-tearing of muscle fiber and repairing that occurs after a workout is referred to as DOMS or PEMS.  While an uncomfortable side effect of exercise that can take a few days to disipate, is should not be the primary indicator of a good workout.  There are several instances of making significant progress without being sore as a result.  

By now you know that soreness is not an indicator of progress.  So what can you use to definitively tell if you are indeed making the progress you would like to see with your wokouts?  This single piece of equipment that does not come with your gym membership but can be purchased for cheap will tell you exactly where you have been, where you are and if you are actually making progress.

Curious as to this piece of equipment with so many benefits?

#1 Piece of Training Equipment in Your Gym Bag should be ...

A workout journal!

The short term goal should be to improve your last effort in some way no matter how small.  If you can get a little better in some way over the short term, it will be significant for the long term.  Tracking your progress in a journal is by far the proven method of progress tracking.  You can even track your body composition (lean mass, fat, weight, muscle size).

You can use your journal to track such things as:

• Sets, Reps and Weight used
• Perception of how you feel
• Rest periods
• Machine settings

How did you feel after your last workout?  We're you tired but happy?  Or so drained you had trouble driving home?  The goal is to challenge yourself in terms of stimulation, not annihilation.  These type of entires will help you gague your intensity levels.  Did you workout so hard you had issues eating a your post-workout meal?  If so, that's not a good sign and if it continues, you'll know to lower the intensity.  

You certainly want to push yourself but not so much as to push past the point of failure where you are so fatigued it takes days to recover or getting so sore it takes 7 days for the DOMS to alliviate.  Those are things that if done over time and you track, you'll see your workouts start to decline.  They affect your ability to recover while will affect your next workout.

The myth that you have to be sore for the workout to be beneficial has been around for a very long time.  Pushing yourself to fatigue is easy.  Improving your last effort is not.  Using a training joural will help you setup your next workout so that it's the right level of intensity for stimuation but not too much to affect recovery.

There is no scientific evident to support that being sore is a requirement for progression.